BELTANE Queen Emily Carrick-Anderson capped off her jam-packed “special” week with an appearance on hit BBC TV show Blue Peter.

Emily said: “It was such a special week, even though I was exhausted by the end of it. 

“I enjoyed every moment of it. My favourite was being crowned on the Parish Church steps, I couldn’t stop smiling.”

Emily’s appearance on Blue Peter came after the team got in touch with her dad, former professional downhill mountain biker Crawford Carrick-Anderson.

The team from Blue Peter travelled to Fort William for filming on June 3 and enlisted the help of Crawford – along with 12-year-old Emily and her 14-year-old brother Corran – to teach presenter Barney Harwood the skills he’d need to race the mini downhill course for a TV challenge at the World Downhill Mountain Biking Championships.

The TV presenter didn’t have long to learn the new skills, with the championships taking place just 24 hours later.

Emily told us: “I’ve raced for as long as I can remember and I love racing at Fort William as the atmosphere is amazing and you get to meet lots of awesome riders like Rachel Atherton. 

“I was a bit nervous to film for Blue Peter, but when Barney arrived he was good fun and made me relax.”

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Emily’s brother Corran said: “I’ve been racing since I was quite little so it’s just part of what I do now. It was good fun filming with Barney. He was a laugh and I enjoyed helping my dad out with the interpreting for the film [Crawford is profoundly deaf and uses British Sign Language to communicate]. 

“I was a bit worried when it started to rain for Barney’s run at Fort William as I thought it might make the course a bit slippy for him but he did great.”

Crawford Carrick-Anderson said: “It’s great to see my kids racing. It’s a dream come true to see them following in my footsteps and I’m happy to take a back seat in racing now to support them. Filming was good fun and the kids did great signing for me. 

“I was a bit worried in case Barney would crash on some of the technical sections but he’s pretty skilled actually and up for anything.”

The Blue Peter show was broadcast at 5.30pm last night (Thursday) on the CBBC channel, but can be watched again at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer.